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UPDATED: Jay Westerdal and Thought Convergence Part Ways

Jay Westerdal, founder of Name Intelligence, has left Thought Convergence.

Thought Convergence, parent company of TrafficZ, acquired Name Intelligence LLC last year. The acquisition included the popular DomainTools.com site. Westerdal remains with Name Intelligence, Inc. a holding company.

Reached by phone this afternoon, Westerdal said his departure stems from a payment dispute over the acquisition.

“Thought Convergence was not able to pay the full amount they had been obligated to pay on the anniversary of the first part of the purchase,” said Westerdal. Thought Convergence bought Name Intelligence in May 2008. “They have another payment due in 2010.” Westerdal said he is considering legal action.

Thought Convergence said it will issue a formal statement later today. Thought Convergence issued a formal statement Wednesday evening, stating that Westerdal’s termination was unrelated to a dispute over the acquisition of Name Intelligence. The company also said it has enough money to pay for the acquisition and the balance of what it owes has been placed in escrow with its law firm.

Clarification: lots of people asked if Westerdal was fired. In both an e-mail to colleagues and in our phone conversation, he said he was indeed terminated.

I liked Jay and I will miss him. He provided a number of good things beneficial to all in the industry. I didn’t appreciate being ignored by him on several occaisions, but I know that important people are often too busy to respond to small players with their petty questions or comments.

Funny comment about the Rick Schwartz private board though, I had not heard about that. But doesn’t that reflect poorly on Rick Schwartz, or the board itself? I mean, I don’t think of Rick being intimidated by anyone in the industry. And if you are willing to shut something down just to be rid of one person, doesn’t that say the board was not worth fighting for…???

Either way, the domain community is fun to watch. I’m kinda glad no one cares about what I do or say… 🙂

Jay is one of the domain industry’s most accomplished and youngest businessman without a doubt who has made a lot of moves over the past few years especially… But what he pulled over at Rick’s board and the consequences — it was really shitty and hundreds of ex-members had a change of heart overnight.

Westerdal is a smart entrepreneur. Domain tools is a highly useful tool to law enforcement, and victims of fraud, theft, scams, trademark infringement, etc. Unless you’ve been a victim of a thief you may not understand the usefulness of such a tool. But then again many of you are sitting on, and profiting from domains infringing on the trademarks of “real” companies, so you’ll likely disagree and whine about the “privacy concerns”. If you are so concerned about your personal privacy go rent a mail drop, and file a dba or incorporate.